#NOT Renewed Call to Action
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#NOT
STOPPING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
IN POLITICS
THE A Renewed Call to Action
COST
COPYRIGHT © NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTE (NDI) 2021. All rights reserved. Portions of this work may be reproduced and/or translated for noncommercial purposes provided NDI is acknowledged as the source of the material and is sent copies of any translation. 455 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20002 Telephone: 202-728-5500 Website: www.ndi.org
#NotTheCost
STOPPING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN POLITICS
A Renewed Call to Action
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The launch of #NotTheCost: Stopping Violence Against Women in Politics, A Renewed Call to Action by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) is the culmination of the hard work and insight of many people around the globe, for whose efforts the Institute is grateful. First, we would like to thank Dr. Mona Lena Krook of Rutgers University, for her continued partnership and work as the technical advisor to this initiative. From writing the initial background paper in 2016, to drafting the original and the renewed call to action document, Mona Lena’s input has been critical to developing a theoretically rigorous and politically convincing approach to the issue and the potential for change. We must also thank our institutional partners for their collaboration on this initiative: the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, International IDEA, the InterParliamentary Union, UN Women and the Organization of American States. In Washington DC, the renewed call has been developed under the leadership of Sandra Pepera, Senior Associate and Director, Gender, Women and Democracy. Caroline Hubbard, Senior Gender Advisor for NDI, served as the Institute’s technical lead on the initiative. They were supported and amplified by many colleagues, but in particular by Victoria Brenner, Clayton McCleskey, Tamar Eisen and Bridget-Rittman Tune. This publication also benefited from the hard work of our production team, including copy editor Bedatri Choudhury and designer Max Sycamore. Finally, the Institute gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Endowment for Democracy for its ongoing financial support to the #NotTheCost initiative.
ABOUT THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTE NDI is a non-profit, non-partisan, non-governmental organization that works in partnership around the world to strengthen and safeguard democratic institutions, processes, norms and values to secure a better quality of life for all. NDI envisions a world where democracy and freedom prevail, with dignity for all. NDI is a leading organization working to advance women’s political participation around the world. The Institute empowers women to participate, compete and lead as equal and active partners in democratic change. Mobilizing its global networks and drawing on three decades of experience in 132 countries, NDI supports women’s aspirations for gender equality, and for inclusive and responsive government. NDI’s multinational approach reinforces the message that while there is no single democratic model, certain core principles are shared by all democracies.
FOREWORD Five years ago, I launched the “#NotTheCost” campaign to stop violence against women in politics on behalf of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and its partners. Since then, the campaign has grown into a global movement focused on ensuring that women everywhere have the chance to participate in safety, in the political life of their countries. With that purpose in mind, we have succeeded in putting the issue on the agenda of political parties, electoral officials and observers, parliaments, digital platforms, regional and international organizations including the United Nations. Despite that progress, political women around the world continue to face violence in the form of everyday sexism, psychological abuse, threats and intimidation - in person and online - physical and sexual assault. Too many have lost their lives. All of this aimed to silence them or to stop them running for office or for striving for change in their communities. Democracy is not an abstract concept or a lofty goal. It is a system characterized by pluralism, participation, transparency and accountability. Democracy depends on everyone being able to speak up, and to join together to fight against inequality, and for justice. In fact, for democracy to succeed, we must change the face of politics altogether. Make no mistake: violence against political women is not only an abuse of their human rights, it is a threat to democracy itself. It is a favorite tool of authoritarians, tyrants and illiberals. They use it to suppress the representation of 50% of the voting population, to constrain the diversity of views, and to affirm the status quo in their favor. That is why this year NDI and its partners are launching a renewed call to action to end violence against women in politics once and for all. If we are determined, we can end the violence that stalks, threatens, attacks and kills women in politics; that deters young women and new entrants from engaging in politics; and that is weaponized and used as a political tactic to achieve political outcomes. Violence against women is “not the cost” of politics. It is a scourge that we must eliminate for good. And we will. Madeleine K. Albright Chairman, The National Democratic Institute
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 8
FRAMING THE CHALLENGE 12
What is ‘violence against women in politics’? 12
Whom does it affect? 15
What forms does violence take? 17
WHY IS THIS VIOLENCE PROBLEMATIC? 21
It is a form of violence against women 21
It violates human rights 23
It undermines democracy 24
HOW CAN WE STOP IT? 26
A call to action 26
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTION 29
Global institutions 30
Regional institutions 34
Governments 38
Parliaments 40
Political parties 46
Civil society 49
Elected and appointed leaders 54
Justice and security sectors 58
Electoral observers and authorities 61
Media and Digital Technology 64
LtoR: Mimoza Kusari Lila of Kosovo, and Rowena Guanzon, member of the Elections Commission of the Philippines, at NDI’s #NotTheCost workshop in May 2018. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY As women advance toward equality, they continue to make historic gains in the political sphere. Women are active in a wide range of political roles—be it within civil society, in political parties or local governments—and they are increasingly occupying leadership roles as mayors, cabinet ministers, prime ministers and presidents. In fact, in the last 25 years, the number of women in parliaments worldwide has more than doubled, and rightly so. Equal participation of women within the political ecosystem is a fundamental human and civil right. Women’s participation in politics results in real gains for democracy, including greater responsiveness to citizen needs, increased cooperation across party and ethnic lines and more sustainable peace. Yet, as women step forward to claim their right to participate in politics, they continue to face strong resistance from opponents of gender equality who use a wide range of tactics to target, undermine and inhibit the participation of women in the political and public sphere. These acts may include psychological abuse, economic coercion, physical and sexual assault and, in a growing trend, online violence and gendered disinformation. While political violence is not always gender specific, violence against women in politics has three distinct characteristics: it targets women explicitly because of their gender; its forms are gendered, as exemplified by sexist threats and sexual violence; and its impact is to discourage women in particular from being or becoming politically active. 8 | Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics
In 2016, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) launched the #NotTheCost campaign to stop violence against women in politics, declaring that women’s political participation should not come at the cost of violence, or even the threat of violence. Building on growing momentum around the world, NDI issued a global call to action to unify efforts to raise awareness of what this problem looks like, why it deserves global attention and what solutions might be pursued. The call to action highlighted the need for stakeholders at the global, national and local levels to take steps to ensure that women are able to fearlessly exercise their right to participate politically as civic leaders, activists, voters, political party members, candidates, elected representatives and appointed officials. On the fifth anniversary of the #NotTheCost campaign, NDI is renewing this call to action in order to reflect what has been learned and the progress that has been made since 2016. Over the last five years, important advances have been achieved and they have fostered a deeper understanding of the problem of gendered violence in politics and its effects. Extensive data collection and documentation on the incidence of this violence has inspired a growing list of solutions that have been adapted to different contexts around the world. However, several new challenges have also emerged. Adding to the existing prevalence of misogyny and sexism, democratic backsliding, a rise in “strong man” politics and technological innovations have created new means of perpetrating violence against politically active women. Additionally, political responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have allowed authoritarian regimes to exploit public health concerns to further restrict civic and political activity. Any systemic shock, such as a pandemic, affects women’s voice, their access to information, the physical environment in which they live and the gendered norms which determine their experience of disempowerment. In the specific case of COVID-19, public health responses have included stay- at-home orders which have increased the demands for women’s time while decreasing the value assigned to it. Consequently, these orders have also made it easier to find and target women activists and have increased women’s vulnerability to online attacks as more of their personal and political lives have moved to digital spaces. Occurrences of domestic violence have also increased exponentially as a result of the pandemic and lockdown measures. Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics | 9
Violence against women in politics is not restricted to any one part of the world, although depending on specific political, social, economic and cultural contexts, the forms and the intensity of the violence may vary. Consistent with a growing body of national laws and international conventions on violence against women, the definition of violence is not limited to acts of physical harm. An NDI study on violence against women in political parties in 2018 revealed that while 20.3% of respondents had confronted physical violence while carrying out party functions, 85.9% had experienced psychological violence, including threats and coercion. These attacks are not evenly distributed, but differentially impact women based on their race, age, class, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity. Until recently, violence against women in politics was a largely invisible problem as women are frequently told that abuse, harassment and assault are simply “the cost of doing politics.” As a result, violence was routinely normalized as part of a woman’s political experience and women grew used to dismissing it. Those who recognize these acts to be unacceptable are often strongly discouraged from reporting them in addition to being threatened by colleagues and forced to remain silent. Many political women even struggle to find a vocabulary to describe their experiences. Some of these acts are explicitly prohibited under many legal frameworks and workplace codes of conduct in the same jurisdictions. Allowing violence to be the price women must pay to exercise their voice and agency politically leads to women’s self-censorship and/or exclusion with serious detrimental consequences for gender equality, human rights and democracy. Violence against women in politics doesn’t just affect its immediate target; it also sends a message to other women that violence awaits them in the political sphere and to society, as a whole, that women should not participate in politics. Research shows that reports of violence against high-profile women in politics discourage other women—particularly girls and younger women— from engaging with politics, thereby undermining their rights and reinforcing women’s intergenerational exclusion from the political sphere. All violence against women is abuse and must be stopped. Any form of tolerance for violence amounts to the infringement of women’s human rights, affronting their personal dignity and hindering their rights to enjoy a life of good health, liberty and security. Violence against women in politics is a threat to the integrity of democratic practice and culture. By excluding women and their perspectives, it disrupts the political process and impedes the will of voters. As a result, this type of violence denies society the benefits of the sustainable and responsive democratic governance that an inclusive political space can create. 10 | Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics
The 2016 call to action presented a wide range of strategies to address and prevent violence against women in politics, focusing on the action that could be taken by potential changemakers from the global to the grassroots levels. Five years later, growing awareness has produced a set of actions to tackle this problem, offering practical and innovative solutions that help call out violence against women in politics, support the women experiencing it, and sanction perpetrators. The 2021 call to action highlights these emerging best practices and, because crucial systemic gaps still exist, it signals where, how, and by whom further actions still need to be taken. Examples of promising intiatives are those being taken by international and regional organizations to set new norms and standards regarding violence against women in politics. There are new expectations of political parties to establish zero tolerance for violence against women party members, imposing sanctions on party members and representatives who perpetrate any such violence. Social media platforms are increasingly introducing new security and privacy settings for accounts to better protect against online violence targeting women and gendered disinformation. There are new tools available that allow politically-active women to assess their risks of violence and help them to develop safety plans to mitigate those risks. Violence against women in politics, like any other form of violence against women, is rooted in gender inequality and therefore remains an intransigent problem worldwide. It is also a deeply political problem that, through the silencing or exclusion of women, can change political outcomes and thereby poses significant danger to democratic ideals. The broad range of actions listed in this renewed call to action suggest that everyone, regardless of their political role, can do something to combat violence against women in politics. However, isolated actions are likely to have less impact than campaigns that succeed in mobilizing and coordinating the efforts of a large number of people in diverse locations, drawing on their differing strengths and capacities to influence change. The task ahead is not only to share existing practices or develop new strategies, but also to explore and nurture new partnerships that help identify and address political strategies that use violence against women in politics to undermine the potential for achieving inclusive and resilient democracies. Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics | 11
Violence against women in politics takes many forms, but shares a common intent to restrict and control women’s political
participation, preventing them from taking their equal places alongside men. (Photo credit: NDI, Pakistan.)
FRAMING THE CHALLENGE
WHAT IS ‘VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN POLITICS’?
Political violence can be experienced by both men and women. However,
the specific issue of violence against women in politics has three distinct
characteristics:
● it targets women because of their gender
● in its very form it can be gendered, as exemplified by sexist threats
and sexual violence
● its impact is to discourage women in particular from being or
becoming politically active
Violence against women in politics encompasses all forms of aggression,
coercion and intimidation seeking to exclude women from politics—whether
serving as civic leaders and activists, voters, political party members, candidates,
elected representatives, appointed officials or election administrators—simply
because they are women. While violence against women in politics takes many
forms, it often draws on gendered ideas about women’s bodies and their
traditional social roles—primarily as mothers and wives—to deny or undercut
their suitability or competence in the political sphere. As a result, its purpose
12 | Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politicsextends beyond the individuals targeted, seeking also to deter other women
who might consider engaging in public and political life.
Violence against women in politics is rooted in gendered power imbalances and
its recognition as a concept seeks to validate women’s lived experiences with
gender-based violence
in the political realm.
It brings attention to
incidents driven by sexism
and misogyny that, due
to structural inequalities
between women and
men, are typically ignored
or treated as “normal”
behaviors. Placing women
at the center of concern,
this approach suggests
that relying solely on
comparisons with men’s
experiences—which are
not rooted in gendered Women who aspire to office, such as these mayoral candidates at an NDI leadership
academy in Mexico, must be able to pursue those aspirations free from the fear of
power imbalances—may violence. (Photo credit: NDI)
be both inappropriate and
misleading.
Over the last five years, a wide range of actors have begun collecting data on this
phenomenon. This work has included re-coding existing datasets on political
violence, conducting original surveys and case-based research and engaging in
online data analysis. Research by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data
(ACLED) Project confirms the existence of political violence targeting women,
which they define as events where individual women, or groups composed
primarily of women, are attacked on political grounds. They find that protests
featuring women were more likely to meet with excessive force or intervention
than protests involving men or mixed-sex groups1.
Gathering testimonies between 2000 and 2005, the Association of Locally
Elected Women of Bolivia found that their members had experienced a wide and
diverse range of violent acts in the course of their political work. Women were
pressured to resign from their positions, faced sexual and physical assaults,
had their salaries frozen illegally and were the subject of defamation, slander
and libel campaigns.2 Looking at Facebook comments directed at candidates in
Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics | 13the 2018 general elections in Pakistan, the Digital Rights Foundation noted that female politicians were far more likely to face objectifying, personal, sexualized or sexual comments, whereas men tended to be attacked more often on policy grounds.3 Despite the resolve of women to continue their political work unabated, many report feeling compelled to take precautions that affect their ability to engage fully with the public and express their opinions freely, especially on controversial issues.4 Witnessing violence against other women can also discourage women from engaging in politics. Writing on the state of women’s rights in Afghanistan, a Human Rights Watch report observed: “Every time a woman in public life is assassinated, her death has a multiplier effect: women in her region or her profession will think twice about their public activities.”5 Not all forms of conflict in political spaces are instances of violence against women in politics, however. Healthy criticism is an essential part of robust political debates and elections, protected and sustained by guarantees of free speech and parliamentary privilege. Yet when women do not feel safe voicing their opinions without the fear of threats or reprisals, their full and equal political participation is impossible. Further, acts of violence that appear small and insignificant can have powerful effects if they form part of a repetitive or persistent pattern informing women’s experiences of political engagement. Growing dependence on digital technology and online platforms, in particular, often reinforce a sense of an anonymous and lurking threat. Women are not just passive victims of violence. Women, like men, can be active perpetrators of violence against politically active women. Although men as a group benefit most directly from patriarchy, men and women alike may seek to punish individuals who do not conform to prevailing gender norms. Some women may also adopt a strategic attitude towards violence; acceding to demands for sexual favors, for instance, as a means for political advancement. These behaviors should be understood as the response to an environment determined by male power, leadership and negative masculinities. Nevertheless, their impact is to normalize demands for sexual exploitation, reinforce patterns of sexual corruption, pollute the democratic culture and color perceptions of other women who are assumed, in error, to have performed such favors. 14 | Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics
Whom does it affect? Violence against women is a global problem affecting women of all backgrounds, in all countries and regions of the world. The same is true of violence targeting women in politics. While the concept was first theorized in relation to experiences of women in the Global South, international actors have increasingly connected these debates as part of the same overarching trend.6 All the same, violence against women in politics does not affect all women equally or in the same ways. Defining violence against women in politics as acts directed at women because they are women, centers the role of gender, potentially suggesting that gender is the main or only source of abuse. Yet other aspects of women’s identities may also influence the levels of violence they experience. Women who are members of other marginalized groups are disproportionately targeted for abuse. A study by Amnesty International found, for example, that Black and Asian women in the British parliament faced 30% more abuse on Twitter than their white counterparts.7 According to a UN Women survey, women who were poor, lower caste and under the age of 30 were more vulnerable to violence in India, Nepal and Pakistan.8 Multiple forms of marginalization can further magnify these effects. In a recent U.S. analysis, the politician receiving the most online abuse, Representative Ilhan Omar, was attacked not only because she is a woman, but also as a racial minority, an immigrant and a Muslim.9 Women’s political activities and profiles may also exacerbate the levels of abuse they experience. Politically active women in countries as diverse as Afghanistan and Sweden note that gender-based attacks against them often escalate after they have proposed bills or appeared on television in connection with women’s issues.10 The same is true of women who achieve high leadership positions. For women politicians in the U.S. and Canada, an increase in political visibility resulted in a sharp rise in uncivil tweets directed at them—an effect that was largely absent for men.11 These patterns reinforce the intuition that violence against women in politics is fundamentally about preserving gender roles. Features of the broader political, social, economic and cultural context may also shape women’s experiences with violence. Authoritarianism and democratic backsliding, militarization accompanied by widespread impunity for law enforcement and military officers, criminal infiltration of public institutions and religious fundamentalism—all reduce the costs of violence for potential perpetrators, while reducing the likelihood of redress for victims. Social media platforms, especially in countries with high levels of internet Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics | 15
use, have dramatically expanded opportunities to harass women directly. New technologies also make it possible to create and disseminate harmful and degrading doctored images and videos to shame and attack women who are active in politics. The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified these risks, as authoritarian regimes exploit the pandemic to further restrict civic and political activity, stay-at-home orders make it easier to find and target women and as women come to rely more on online spaces to do their political work, their vulnerability to online attacks increases.12 Violence against women in politics targets, but is not restricted to, women holding formal political roles. As voters, women may confront efforts to prevent them from voting or to coerce them to vote in a particular way, including through threats of divorce from their husbands and other members of their families. As electoral officials or party poll agents, they may face intimidation aimed at closing female-only polling stations or be on the receiving end of threats from constituents and political parties keen to suppress full vote counts. As activists and human rights defenders, women may face negative or outright hostile reactions from their families, communities or governments, especially if they are in isolated regions and challenging established networks of patronage or resource allocation. Women from all walks of life can be targeted by violence for their political participation—not only candidates and elected officials, but activists and those who are merely exercising their right to vote, like this woman in Nigeria’s 2015 national election. (Photo credit: NDI.) 16 | Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics
As members of political parties, women may be unsafe even among their own political colleagues, being more likely than men to be victims of violence, to witness violence against others in the party and to perceive a climate of violence within the party itself.13 As candidates, women may confront negative reactions from various directions, including their families and spouses. They may also face vandalism of their campaign materials, character assassination from opponents both outside and inside their parties and rape threats aimed at curbing their political ambition. As elected and appointed officials, women are not immune to attack, facing potentially hostile working conditions, including sexual harassment, within legislatures and council chambers, as well as sexist abuse on social media intended to marginalize them and render them less effective. As political staffers, finally, women may be subject to sexual harassment in political spaces. When working for female officeholders, they may also be the first point of contact for harassing phone calls, threatening letters and abusive social media posts. Despite growing attention to the problem of violence against women in politics, it remained a largely invisible problem until very recently. A key reason is that women are frequently told that facing abuse, harassment and assault is simply “the cost of doing politics.” As a result, many dismiss or ignore violence as a normal part of the political game. Other women recognize that such acts are unacceptable, but are strongly discouraged and even threatened by colleagues to remain quiet. They may also fear being dismissed as “playing the gender card,” or blamed for bringing the abuse upon themselves. The lack of robust and safe complaint mechanisms exacerbates these effects, leaving women feeling as if there is no one to tell their experiences to, as well as increasing their sense of vulnerability to such attacks. In the five years since the launch of #NotTheCost campaign, these dynamics have shifted somewhat as growing numbers of political women around the world have begun to speak out and give a name to their experiences: violence against women in politics. What forms does violence take? Debates on violence against women in politics eschew simplistic definitions focused merely on the use of physical force, in favor of more comprehensive definitions, recognizing a broader range of violations of personal integrity. Thinking about violence as existing on a continuum not only facilitates recognition of its different forms, but also highlights their connections and interactive effects. In its guidelines for statistics on violence against women, Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics | 17
the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) recommends collecting data on four types of violence: in UNDESA’s order of listing, physical, sexual, psychological and economic.14 Physical violence involves injuries inflicted on women’s bodies, as well as acts of bodily harm carried out against their family members. Examples include assassination, kidnapping, beating and domestic abuse, either of the woman or her family members, in order to prevent her political participation. Compared to other types of violence against women in politics, physical violence tends to be relatively rare, with offenders opting for “less costly” means of violence before escalating to physical attacks. According to research by NDI with political party leaders and members in Côte d’Ivoire, Honduras, Tanzania and Tunisia, 20.3% of women respondents reported having personally experienced some form of physical violence in connection with their political work.15 Sexual violence entails sexual acts and attempts at sexual acts by coercion, including unwelcome sexual comments or advances. Examples include sexual harassment, rape and sexual exploitation, such as forcing women to perform sexual favors in order to win a party nomination. Sexual violence may also involve sexually explicit or sexually graphic representations of women online, often doctored or fake, drawing on potent cultural ideas about women’s sexuality to question their morality and sexual identity. Beginning in late 2017, the global #MeToo movement gave crucial momentum to discussions of sexual In 2020, Gretchen Whitmer, governor of the state of Michigan in the USA, was the target of a foiled kidnapping plot devised by violent extremists. (Photo Credit: NDI) 18 | Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics
violence in political spaces, but this topic nonetheless still remains taboo. Approximately one-quarter (23.4%) of women in NDI’s No Party to Violence study reported facing sexual violence in the course of their political work. Men were far less aware of this problem than women, reflecting either a lack of knowledge or an unwillingness to discuss such issues, or a tolerance for violence against their female party colleagues.16 Psychological violence entails hostile behavior and abuse intended to cause fear and/or emotional damage. Death and rape threats, character assassination, social boycotts and stalking are all examples of this type of violence. Such acts may occur inside and outside official political settings and may be carried out in person, by telephone or via digital means like email and social media. Studies using a variety of data sources, including testimonies of political women, data on electoral violence and purpose-built surveys all suggest that psychological abuse is the most widespread form of violence against women in politics.17 In NDI’s study on violence against women within political parties, 85.9% of the women interviewed had faced psychological violence, including death and rape threats and sexist attacks online. Women were also far more likely than men to say they had witnessed someone in the party using psychological attacks, including threats and coercion, to control or persuade others.18 Economic violence employs economic hardship and deprivation as a means of control and intimidation. Examples include vandalism, property destruction, theft and withholding of funds and resources. Despite direct links between economic violence and the ability of women to seek and perform political functions, it remains one of the most invisible forms of violence against women in politics and simultaneously one of the more common forms of violence experienced by politically active women. More than one-third (35.9%) of women surveyed by NDI said they had faced some form of economic violence while carrying out their political party functions, exceeding the reported rates of physical and sexual violence.19 A fifth category, semiotic violence,20 is not yet widely recognized, but captures dynamics that are not easily reduced to the other four types of violence. It involves mobilizing words and images to injure, discipline and subjugate women. Unlike the other four forms, these acts are less about attacking a particular woman directly than about shaping public perceptions about the validity of women’s political participation more broadly. Perhaps the clearest example is the rising and potent trend of gendered disinformation, which weaponizes gendered narratives to spread highly emotive content to convince people that women are devious, stupid, overly sexual or immoral and therefore, Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics | 19
unfit for public life. Such attacks often involve sexualized distortion, including doctored nude photos, screenshots from alleged sex tapes and accusations of illicit affairs, and have become an increasingly favored political tactic among authoritarian and illiberal forces around the world.21 As evident through these examples, violence against women in politics occurs in both public and private spaces, with incidents and their effects often challenging the boundary between professional and private life. Perpetrators are not limited to political rivals, the traditional focus of research on political violence, but may include a woman’s family and friends, members of her own party, community and religious leaders, media outlets and state security forces and the police, among others. Over the last five years, advances in digital technologies have expanded the range of perpetrators to include anonymous actors working on their own or as part of large online mobs—some transnational—to intimidate and humiliate women active in the public sphere. Given the freedom and anonymity one enjoys on the internet, these acts of violence can easily cross national borders and have powerful and sustained effects that are difficult to control or reverse. 20 | Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics
As with other forms of violence against women, violence against women in politics violates human rights. Moreover, it has additional impacts on democracy itself. (Photo credit: NDI, Honduras) WHY IS THIS VIOLENCE PROBLEMATIC? It is a form of violence against women The 1993 United Nations International Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.”22 The UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) General Recommendation No. 19 (1992) describes violence against women as “a form of discrimination that seriously inhibits women’s ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on the basis of equality with men,” which may keep “women in subordinate roles and contribute to their low level of political participation.”23 In 2017, CEDAW General Recommendation No. 35 recognized that “harmful practices and crimes against women human rights defenders, politicians, activists or journalists are… forms of gender-based violence against women.” It further stressed that “gender-based violence against women occurs in all spaces and spheres of human interaction, whether public or private, including… politics.”24 Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics | 21
Placing violence against women within a discrimination framework highlights the ways in which traditional gender roles, rooted in social, cultural and religious norms, both inform and justify the various forms of violence that women experience around the world. Since the 1990s, countries have responded to global shifts in perspective by adopting new laws on violence against women, together with legal reforms like gender quotas aimed at increasing the share of women in positions of political leadership. However, growing authoritarian forces across the globe threaten this progress, promoting regressive social norms—including a return to traditional gender roles—in the name of nationalist and other illiberal political agendas, in turn, offer particularly fertile ground for violence against women in politics. Over the last five years, the issue of violence against women in politics has been integrated into related global frameworks on gender-based violence. In the wake of the launch of the #NotTheCost campaign, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women announced her intention to take up the topic. In 2018, she submitted a report to the UN General Assembly which explicitly recognized violence against women in politics as a form of “gender-based violence.”25 Two months later, the UN General Assembly debated Resolution 73/148 on sexual harassment, which specifically invoked the concept of violence against women in politics. The resolution expressed deep concerns about “all acts of violence, including sexual harassment, against women and girls involved in political and public life, including women in leadership positions, journalists and other media workers and human rights defenders.”26 Emerging data from around the world illustrates the impact of violence against women in politics on gender equality. Reviewing ten years of case files, the Association of Locally Elected Women in Bolivia found that more than one-third of the complaints it had received concerned forced resignations, with women local councillors being pressured to hand over their seats to male alternates. Few women ran for a second term, moreover, believing that holding political office was not worth the physical and psychological violence they had endured. 27 Online violence, similarly, induced politically active women to pause, decrease or completely halt their social media engagement in Colombia, Indonesia and Kenya.28 Violence against women in politics may also have longer-term effects on gender equality by reducing young women’s political ambitions. In the United Kingdom, almost all (98%) participants in a program for aspiring women leaders reported witnessing sexist abuse of female politicians online; over 75% indicated this was a concern weighing on their decision to pursue a role in public life.29 Interviews 22 | Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics
in Canada with young people affected by sexual violence in the course of their
political work, found that a stunning 80% had left politics (52%) or significantly
reduced their involvement in politics (28%) as a result.30
It violates human rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(1948) affirms that everyone has the right
to life, liberty and security of person. The
Vienna Declaration, adopted at the UN World
Conference on Human Rights in 1993, described
the “human rights of women” as “an inalienable,
integral and indivisible part of universal human
rights.” It called for the “elimination of violence
against women in public and private life,”
arguing that gender-based violence constituted
a violation of human rights.31 CEDAW General
Recommendation No. 35 (2017) asserts that
women’s right to a life free from gender-based
violence is “indivisible from and interdependent”
on other human rights, including rights to life,
health, liberty and security of the person;
freedom from torture, cruel, inhumane or
degradation treatment; and freedom of Taking action to promote an inclusive democracy, means
women being involved in every level and aspect of political life,
expression, movement, participation, assembly like this presiding officer during the 2015 Nigeria elections.
(Photo credit: NDI.)
and association.32
The UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders (1998) asserts, further, that
everyone has the right “to participate in peaceful activities against violations
of human rights and fundamental freedoms.” It also stipulates the right to be
protected “against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse
discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of
his or her legitimate exercise of [these] rights.”33 The first report of the UN
Special Representative on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders in 2002
noted that women defenders “face risks that are specific to their gender and
additional to those faced by men,” because “they may defy cultural, religious or
social norms about femininity and the role of women in a particular country or
society.” It also observed that “hostility, harassment and repression” faced by
women defenders may take gender-specific forms, ranging from “verbal abuse
Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics | 23directed exclusively at women because of their gender, to sexual harassment and rape.”34 Human rights abuses can assail a target’s sense of personal dignity. Flora Terah, a parliamentary candidate in Kenya, was beaten by a group of men leading to an extensive period of hospitalization. In an autobiography, she noted that her attackers “had wanted to humiliate me, strip me of all my dignity and leave nothing of me but a shell.”35 Abuse also threatens individuals’ sense of security, creating additional mental labor and requiring the adoption of extensive preventative measures in the conduct of their daily lives, including at home. This may increase negative perceptions among women regarding the costs of being politically active, in turn thwarting their pursuit of social justice. A study of insecurity as a barrier to women’s participation in protests in Egypt, Libya and Yemen observes that “ambitious young women are forced to forego opportunities for development that could make them more effective community and political activists in the future.”36 It undermines democracy The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) outlines a number of civil and political rights, including the right to self-determination, individual liberty, political participation and non-discrimination and equality before the law. CEDAW also specifies that women have the right, on equal terms with men, to vote and stand for election, to hold public office and perform all public functions at all levels of government and to participate in associations concerned with the public and political life of their countries. Violence against women in politics undermines the exercise of these rights, preventing women from participating in politics freely and without fear and constraining voters’ choice about who is available to represent them. It also deprives society of the benefits of women’s inclusion in political deliberation, including greater responsiveness to citizen needs, increased cooperation across party and ethnic lines and more sustainable peace. Violence against women in politics can impact democracy in the short-, medium- and long-term. On a day-to-day basis, dealing with abuse and harassment can burden women with extra concerns, drawing time and attention away from their political priorities. In an Inter-Parliamentary Union survey of political staffers in Europe, 59.7% of those subjected to violence said they were badly shaken by the experience. More than half (52.9%) reported it had affected their ability to 24 | Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics
work normally.37 Violence can also affect women’s willingness to share their political opinions in the present as well as in the future. Following the murder of British parliamentarian Jo Cox in 2016, her colleague Jess Phillips shared: “Jo’s death has brought about so many emotions… I am scared that what I might say or do will make me a target… For Jo, her beliefs and her courage to air them cost her her life.”38 Such dynamics also threaten the broader fight for social justice because, as noted by the Latin American human rights network IM-Defensoras, women human rights defenders are often the ones who search for disappeared victims, mobilize to defend the lands and natural resources of indigenous groups and defend women working in sweatshops.39 These threats to democracy have deepened over the past five years, as rising authoritarianism and democratic backsliding have accompanied a resurgence of patriarchal values and behaviors in the public sphere. In countries like Brazil, Hungary, the Philippines and the U.S., the election of openly misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic leaders have gone hand-in-hand with a significant regression in political discourse and public speech on issues of gender and sexuality, organized around a binary of masculine authority and feminine domesticity. The challenge to patriarchal authoritarianism, largely led by women, met with violent repression from state actors in Belarus. In Poland, where the government had already targeted women’s rights groups with various forms of economic intimidation including police raids, eviction from office spaces and sudden elimination of funding,40 the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a convenient excuse for further restricting public gatherings, including protests against new policies rolling back women’s reproductive rights. Violence against women in politics is thus a central component in the unravelling of democratic institutions and reassertion of patriarchal masculinities. Women must be able to speak out in their own voice and conscience, like this woman in Pakistan, without fear of violence or the threat of reprisal. (Photo credit: NDI.) Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics | 25
HOW CAN WE STOP IT? A call to action Violence against women in politics is a serious issue that affects the development of strong, inclusive and democratic societies, as well as global progress toward gender equality. As the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals make clear, these outcomes are fundamentally connected and require action to ensure that women and girls are able to claim full and equal opportunities and rights— including their right to participate meaningfully in all aspects of political life, free from the fear or threat of violence. An important first step is to declare that violence should not be “the cost of doing politics” for women seeking to participate in any aspect of the political process—as civic leaders and activists, voters, party members, candidates, elected representatives, appointed officials or election administrators. Rather, violence costs politics the benefits of sustainable and responsive democratic governance that an inclusive political space can create. Exposing violence against women in politics in all its forms is vital for ensuring women’s rights to participate fully, equally and safely in political and public life, and in turn, for promoting democracy, human rights and gender equality. In 2016, the #NotTheCost call to action presented possible strategies to address and prevent violence against women in politics. Focusing on a wide range of potential changemakers, from the global to the grassroots levels, the call focused on actions that might be pursued to educate and raise awareness about violence against women in politics, creating new norms and standards against this behavior; to create processes at the institutional and national level for registering and responding to complaints of violence against women in politics; and to provide services for assisting women who are victims of violence against women in politics, as well as to punish the perpetrators of such violence. Many of these strategies were theoretical at the time, as the issue of violence against women in politics had not yet entered the realm of public debate in many parts of the world. This renewed call to action highlights the emerging best practice and where, how and by whom further actions might be taken. 26 | Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics
The broad range of actors on this list suggest that everyone, regardless of their particular political role, can do something to combat violence against women in politics. All the same, isolated actions are likely to have less impact than campaigns that mobilize and coordinate the efforts of actors in distinct locations, drawing on their differing strengths and capacities to influence change. The task ahead is thus not only to share existing practices or develop new strategies, but also to explore and nurture new partnerships to tackle violence against women in politics in all its manifestations. This includes engaging men as change agents alongside women,41 as well as tailoring strategies to distinct social, economic, political and cultural contexts. Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics | 27
OPPORTUNITIES
FOR ACTION
28 | Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in PoliticsOPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTION Violence against women in politics is a multi-faceted issue, involving diverse acts and a broad range of potential perpetrators. While every countermeasure, however small, is important, tackling this problem effectively requires that actors at various levels take steps to call out violence against women in politics, support the women who experience it and respond to and sanction offenders. The opportunities for action that follow are organized for quick reference, with the tools that are most useful or relevant for members of specific institutions or sectors of society, collected together in sections. These actions might be used singly, joined in varying combinations or modified to fit particular political situations, institutions or contexts. Exploring ways to work together across these levels, however, is likely to have the greatest impact on ensuring that women are able to participate in politics fully, equally and safely. Three strategies might be pursued by actors at all levels. The first is awareness- raising, which is vital for all other efforts as it lays the groundwork for recognizing the problem and inspiring action to address it. This entails using the concept of “violence against women in politics”—or related terms like political harassment and violence against women, electoral gender-based violence and abuse and intimidation— to name acts that use physical, psychological, sexual, economic and semiotic violence to exclude and marginalize women as political actors. Actors at the global, national and local levels should emphasize that violence should not be the “cost of doing politics.” Further, violence against women in politics is a global problem, not one restricted to only one area of the world. While such acts may take different forms, given variations in political, social, economic and cultural contexts, they nonetheless share the same intentions to restrict and control women’s political participation. The second strategy involves data collection, which can help prove the existence of the problem, identify the perpetrators and measure progress and setbacks over time. Lack of data on violence against women in politics contributes to denial of this problem, as well as ignorance of its troubling impact on women, politics and society. Over the last five years, actors at all levels have adopted four main approaches: re-examining existing datasets on political and electoral violence through a gender lens, conducting original surveys informed by work on violence against women, gathering and systematizing testimonies from individual women and collecting social media data using hand-coding and automated techniques. Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politics | 29
The third strategy is networking and training. This might entail creating formal
or informal opportunities for women politicians and civil society groups to
connect on the issue of violence against women in politics, for example, during
in-person gatherings or via virtual platforms. Given the sensitive nature of this
topic, organizers should take care to ensure that the women who participate
are protected from any backlash or breach of confidentiality, with psychological
support and other services made available to those who may require them.
Training programs should assist women in learning ways to respond to and
mitigate acts of violence, including tips on how to decrease vulnerability and
respond effectively to both in-person and online attacks. Men should also
be targeted for training opportunities addressing the roles they can play in
stopping or responding to violence, including better understanding their own
disproportionate power and privilege in political spaces.
GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS
Intergovernmental organizations, international associations and international
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can contribute to efforts to combat
violence against women in politics by establishing new international standards
and leveraging their global reach to raise awareness and provide technical
assistance on this issue across world regions. Over the last five years, a growing
number of global institutions have tackled violence against women in politics
by raising its visibility, calling for new standards of behavior and tracking and
monitoring its occurrence. There is ample room, however, for more global
actors to become engaged with this issue and incorporate concern for violence
against women in politics into existing and emerging normative frameworks,
operating procedures and global programming.
Actions for global institutions:
● Integrate violence against women in politics into existing international
instruments on violence against women, human rights, peace and conflict
and women’s rights, among other possibilities. This topic has appeared in
reports by the UN Special Rapporteurs on Violence against Women and on
Human Rights Defenders. It has also been taken up under mechanisms
provided by CEDAW. Between 2015 and mid-2019, the CEDAW Committee
raised the issue of violence against women in politics in concluding
30 | Not the Cost: A Renewed Call to Action to End Violence Against Women in Politicsobservations to five country reports: Bolivia, Honduras, Costa Rica, Italy
and Mexico. CEDAW General Recommendation No. 30 (2013) on women
in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations recommended
a “zero-tolerance policy” for “targeted violence by state and non-state
groups against women campaigning for public office or women exercising
their right to vote.”42
● Establish new standards for behavior in political spaces. In 2018, the
UN General Assembly approved Resolution 73/148, encouraging national
parliaments and political parties to “adopt codes of conduct and reporting
mechanisms, or revise existing ones, stating zero-tolerance…. for sexual
harassment, intimidation and any other form of violence against women
in politics.”43 The following year, the Inter-Parliamentary Union published
a set of guidelines offering advice and practical information on how to
transform parliaments into gender-sensitive environments free from
sexism and abuse.44 While not dealing explicitly with violence against
women in politics, International Labour Organization Convention 190 on
the Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the World of Work (2019)
helps resolve ambiguities and specificities regarding politics as a place
of work—namely who is a “worker” and that the “world of work” includes
both public and private spaces serving as places of work—that have posed
challenges to dealing with issues of sexual as well as online harassment in
political spaces.45
● Develop new standards for electoral observation. In 2019, the Convening
Committee for the Declaration of Principles for International Election
Observation and the Code of Conduct for International Election Observers
adopted a set of guidelines drafted by a group co-ordinated by NDI,46 for
integrating gender considerations into all aspects of international election
missions. Outlining the many ways in which women may participate in
elections, including as citizen election observers, media representatives
and election workers, this framework emphasized that women should be
able to serve in all these capacities “without fear or threat of violence.”47
At a more grassroots level, NDI developed a gender-sensitive methodology
for citizen election observation, Votes without Violence, to monitor incidents
of violence against women as voters, candidates, election administrators
and public officials before, during and after elections.48
● Collect and publish data on violence against women in politics. In
2016, the Inter-Parliamentary Union conducted a survey with 55 women
parliamentarians from 39 countries across five world regions, asking
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